Hazelnutty's New Start

Hazelnutty

Hello! We've been without power for 48 hours so I've been away from the forums - really had to squirrel through the pages to find my diary! I can't even bear to go through it all here but just

Anyway, we've decided to have a night away at our favourite pub in a small Suffolk village to recharge our batteries. They forage locally as part of their seasonal menu so it's going to be a real treat. It's so lovely and quiet. Weather's set to be awful but we'll get out our wet weather gear and get a walk in too. I have some money in the holiday virtual pot which is unlikely to be spent on any proper holidaying so it seems like money well spent on our sanity

South_coast

48 hours 😮😮😮

A break sounds just the ticket.... x

themadvix

Break sounds lovely - hope the power is back by the time you get back!

Karmacat

Good grief!  Yes, a break is a great idea, it sounds lovely - tell us what they forage

Grogged

Just finished reading your diary, what a rollercoaster the last few weeks have been.
Hope you had a wonderful break.
ATB
G.

greent

Hi Hazelnutty - just caught up on your diary from July (I went AWOL from MFW diaries for a few weeks and am now paying the price by having big catch ups to.do on all my subscribed threads!) 🤦‍♀️

*How* busy have you been over the last few months?! - and what a saga the garden room is turning into - nightmare with the pipes and lack of power (hope all your food survived....!!) - fingers crossed it goes smoother from now on and hopefully will be all done and lovely for Xmas!

I do (extremely part time) very casual hours in 2 schools - and see so many staff are massively tired and looking forward to Xmas already - there's extra assessments and things going on which aren't normally around at this time of year to add to their workload. I feel for anyone in academia right now - you've had a crazy time and many have managed it all whilst having their own children home, other normal life issues etc and no real Summer break. 

Seriously - doesn't the normality of this time last year seem so far away now - we took so many simple things for granted...

Anyway, am back on your diary now that I've caught up! x

Hazelnutty

Thanks everyone for stopping by! @Grogged sterling effort ploughing through the whole shebang
That electrician has now been replaced - he was just so offhand with us about the whole thing and who needs someone who doesn't do the job and then is rude to you about not doing it? Unfortunately he has to come back to finish what he started but the rest of the build will be with a new guy. And we have a plumber! Since I've last posted it's been digging up the garden (heavy clay) to redo all the pipework so not much of the good progress but all necessary groundwork (literally!)

We didn't get the break in the end - place didn't confirm and by the time I chased them they had a room but no space for dinner. BUT have managed to book for this Friday so will report back! Can't wait First week of teaching online has been good but tiring. Students seem really keen to be back learning (and it's lovely to have them back, albeit virtually ) The tech has held up too *touch wood* @greent thanks for the support   It was awful how teachers were dumped on by the government and the RW media when they raised concerns about the return to school ('let teachers be heroes' ) 

MSE-wise, the last few weeks have been a bit of a disaster. I think we're looking at about £6.5k extra work for the groundwork and a lot of takeaways for when there was too much disruption or too little energy to cook. I've also had to replace my elderly laptop, which I knew would happen sometime but wish it could've held on just a few more months I've probably stayed away from here because I've not wanted to admit all my spendyness! But hope to be back soon

themadvix

Sounds like progress is being made. Totally agree about rude tradesmen - there's no need to put up with that.

You are allowed to have MSE disasters when you're going through a major upheaval - don't stay away though! The MSE bits are what make it possible to spend the extra £6.5k!

Karmacat

Absolutely agree - extra spends are inevitable when there's big stuff going on in the background, you just have to write it off, sadly.  Don't be a stranger

Hazelnutty

Aw Karma, I've been something of a stranger over the last couple of weeks but stumbling back in with my October report:

Food: £228/£325 (which sounds great until you see...)

Ents: £212/£175 (well it is takeaway time - so much disruption due to the house - we've just come back from staying in an apartment about a mile away for half term, kindly supported by OH's parents)

NF: £143/£50 Eek!

Fuel: £70/£100

Clothes: £94/£50
I haven't OP'd this month as it's under £20 and just a bit of a hassle (as I have a B@rclays mortgage but no other account, there's very little functionality on online banking I can access - it's a debit card payment basically). So just going to roll it forward. TBH there's been just too much going on to do much extra earnings and I've been slack on surveys etc. My regular OP will go out on 1st though.

November pots
£950 divided between NS&I and virtual house renovation pots
£610 to other virtual pots
£100 to safety net savings account

I guess I'm  just feeling  a bit overwhelmed. Work is so busy and we're stuck with the house (now need planning permission to put right undeclared, non-compliant structural work that was done way back). So it's hard to do anything more than record my spends rather than try to be more strategic. The only financial news is that I have a quote from the only authorised solar installer for the government scheme in my area that's still got capacity so have decided to go ahead with thermal solar installation. It'll cost me just under £2.5k. This means dipping into my safety net fund but, on balance, I think it's the right thing to do. We're only going to need renewables more in the future, so a limited investment now seems sensible...

Will try to catch up with all you news this weekend!